3GPP to BMP Converter

3GPP to BMP: Three Presets, Three Different Encoders

Pulling a still out of a .3gpp phone recording and saving it as a Windows bitmap is a two-decision job: which moment you want, and which of the three quality presets you pick. That second choice matters more here than on most image pages, because BMP has no quality slider — the presets are not points on a scale, they are three genuinely different ways of writing the file. One produces an uncompressed 16-bit bitmap, one a 256-colour run-length-encoded BMP v3, and one an 86-colour version of the same. This page measures all three so you can pick deliberately.

How to Convert 3GPP to BMP

1. Upload Your 3GPP File: Drag and drop the .3gpp onto the page or click "+ Add Files". Several clips can be queued and they share the same frame and quality settings.
2. Choose Frame Selection and the Time: "Specific Frame" is preselected; type the moment into "Time (seconds)", where 0 is the opening frame and decimals like 3.75 are accepted. "Multiple Screenshots" instead takes a run of frames at a "Capture Rate" you choose, from ten a second down to one every ten seconds.
3. Pick the Quality Preset: The dropdown offers High, Medium and Low — those three and no others on a BMP target. High writes an uncompressed 16-bit bitmap; Medium and Low write palette bitmaps with run-length compression.
4. Set the Image Resolution and Convert: "Keep original" is preselected, with Resolution Percentage, Preset Resolutions, Width, Height and Width x Height available if you need a different size. Click "Convert" and download. No sign-up, no watermark.

What Each Preset Writes

Measured on frames taken from real 3GPP-container clips at the two frame sizes phone recordings actually use:

The High figure is not an estimate — an uncompressed bitmap's size is fixed by arithmetic, and 352 x 288 x 2 bytes plus a 54-byte header is exactly the 202,806 bytes measured. Two things follow. First, there is no 24-bit true-colour option on this page: the highest setting stores five bits per channel, so subtle gradients can show slight banding that the source video did not have. Second, the run-length compression Medium and Low use is designed for flat graphics, so it saves a great deal on simple content and much less on noisy footage — on the detailed CIF frame above, Medium was only about half the size of High rather than the tenfold saving flat artwork would give.

Because the High preset is uncompressed, you can work out its size before converting — two bytes per pixel plus the 54-byte header, whatever the picture contains:

Picking a Frame Out of a Phone Recording

The frame is decoded from the 3GPP stream and written first as a lossless PNG, which is then encoded as the BMP you download. That means the bitmap holds exactly what the video decoder produced, with no extra lossy step — and equally, with none of the source's compression artefacts removed. 3GPP clips are usually H.263 or MPEG-4 video at low bitrates, so expect blocking and softness in the still; that is the recording, not the conversion.

A few habits that make the result better:

• Do not accept the default time. 0 is the opening frame, which on a phone recording is frequently dark, half-exposed or mid-autofocus. Try 1.0 or 2.0 first.
• Take several candidates. Run the grab at 12.0, 12.3 and 12.6, or switch to "Multiple Screenshots" at a fast capture rate, and keep the sharpest. Low-frame-rate 3GPP footage varies a lot between neighbouring frames.
• Choose High for photographic content, Medium for screens and graphics. A palette of 256 colours is plenty for a screenshot, a caption card or a logo and cuts the file dramatically; on a face or a landscape it posterises.
• Resize before, not after. Setting the resolution here re-samples from the decoded frame; scaling the finished BMP in a viewer usually looks worse.

If the still is destined for anywhere other than an old Windows application, BMP is rarely the right container — 3GPP to PNG is far smaller, and 3GPP to JPG is smaller still for sharing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are there only three quality presets on this page?

Because BMP has only three distinct write paths here, and the dropdown reflects that honestly. High is an uncompressed 16-bit bitmap, Medium is a 256-colour run-length-encoded BMP v3, and Low is an 86-colour dithered version of the same. There is no continuous quality scale to expose — BMP is not a lossy codec with a rate knob, so the choice is which structure the file has rather than how much detail to discard.

Is the High preset a 24-bit bitmap?

No. It writes 16 bits per pixel — five bits each for red, green and blue — so a little over 32,000 possible colours rather than 16.7 million. We measured a 352 x 288 frame at exactly 202,806 bytes, which is two bytes per pixel plus a 54-byte header, confirming the layout. For most video frames the difference is invisible, but on smooth gradients it can show as faint banding. If you need true colour, take the frame as 3GPP to PNG instead.

Why is my BMP so much larger than the whole video file?

Because a video stores differences between frames and a bitmap stores every pixel of one frame outright. A six-second 3GPP clip can easily be smaller than a single uncompressed still taken from it — the codec had motion compensation and lossy compression on its side, and BMP has neither. Choosing Medium or Low, or reducing the resolution, brings the still back down.

Which preset should I choose for a screenshot or a caption card?

Medium. Flat artwork, text overlays, menu screens and logos have few distinct colours, so a 256-colour palette reproduces them essentially perfectly, and the run-length compression works well on large flat areas. Reserve High for photographic frames, where a limited palette shows visible posterisation on skin and sky.

How do I get a frame from a specific moment?

Leave "Frame Selection" on "Specific Frame" and type the timestamp into "Time (seconds)". It is seconds with decimals, not minutes and seconds — so a moment at 2 minutes 5 seconds is 125, and 2.05 would take you two seconds in. For a batch of candidates instead of one guess, switch to "Multiple Screenshots" and pick a fast capture rate.

Can I extract several stills in one go?

Yes. "Multiple Screenshots" applies your capture rate across the whole clip — at one image per second a six-second recording produces six BMP files, which you can download individually or as a ZIP. Because BMP is either uncompressed or lightly compressed, keep an eye on the total: a fast capture rate over a long clip produces a lot of megabytes.

Does the bitmap keep transparency or the video's metadata?

Neither applies here. Video frames have no alpha channel, so there is nothing transparent to preserve, and the BMP variants written on this page store colour data with no metadata block for capture time, device or rotation. If you need a still that can carry transparency for later editing, convert to 3GPP to PNG and add the alpha in an editor.

Will the still look better if I raise the resolution setting?

No. Increasing the output size scales the decoded frame up, which enlarges the existing softness and blocking rather than revealing detail — a 176 x 144 phone frame contains 176 x 144 pixels' worth of information no matter what size you write. Leave "Keep original" selected unless a specific downstream slot demands particular dimensions, in which case set them explicitly with Width x Height.

How are my files handled, and how long do you keep them?

Your clip is uploaded over an encrypted connection, decoded on our servers, and deleted automatically a few hours after conversion — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public. 3GPP files are small, so uploads are quick here; the output is usually the larger of the two, especially at the High preset or with a run of screenshots.